"Much of [narrator Berl Pickett]—an eccentric character trying to figure life out amidst a powerful landscape—will be familiar from [Thomas] McGuane's previous novels, such as Keep the Change and Nothing but Blue Skies. But here the big questions have grown even bigger. For Pickett, the son of a foxhole atheist and a born-again Christian, bafflement infects his behavior; at root, this is a novel about science and faith, and life and death. The endlessly quotable McGuane ('I came from an era when breasts just happened, were not built to suit') explores all this in a deadpan vernacular that is all the more profound for its matter-of-factness. And Pickett, an outsider in his own small town, is a fascinating character who calls to mind some of the great literary iconoclasts. But his perceived shortcoming, an inability to do as others do, represents his greatest strength: he doesn't understand life, but he refuses to pretend that he does. A marvelous book, funny, elegiac, and profound, from a clear-eyed observer of modern life."—Booklist (starred review)